Preparing Healthcare Organizations for New IT Systems Adoption: A Readiness Framework

Abstract

Information systems exist for hospitals but even the most advanced systems concentrate on relatively simple coordination, resource allocation and documentation aspects of healthcare operations. At the same time the need to improve health care performance by means of more sophisticated IT systems is widely felt. In practice, however, the adoption of new IT is usually a difficult and a very slow process. To analyse the underlying reasons, we identified a set of key bottlenecks in the IT adoption process by interviewing large groups of healthcare actors. We conclude that health care organizations should be better prepared in order to facilitate easier IT systems’ adoption. To do so, a readiness framework is considered to be helpful, the contours of which are sketched in this article. It is also discussed how, based on clarified clinical pathways, workflow management can assist in framing optimization of resource utilisation, clinical decision-making, staff training and quality improvement in healthcare delivery.